


Home is Where the Heart Is(n't)

by Katreal



Series: St Maryam's Home for the Lost (and Found) [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adoption, Earth C (Homestuck), Gen, Identity Issues, Not Epilogue Compliant, Reincarnation, Splinter Soup for the Pre-teen's Soul, background davekat, unnecessary metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:13:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25903378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katreal/pseuds/Katreal
Summary: Home is such a foreign concept.There's nothing wrong about it, per se. But there's nothing right about it either.You keep bumping up against bruises you never knew you had.
Relationships: Dave Strider & Dirk Strider, Dirk Strider & Karkat Vantas
Series: St Maryam's Home for the Lost (and Found) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775377
Comments: 11
Kudos: 99





	Home is Where the Heart Is(n't)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coolbrewed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbrewed/gifts).



> This work is a continuation of the series inspired by coolbrewed's reincarnation AU [[See the concept post here!]](https://coolbrewed.tumblr.com/post/620102378827448320/tumblr-can-have-another-au-concept-sketch-as-a).

You’re not quite sure this is real.

You’re home.

It’s a foreign concept.

You stand on the walkway leading up to what Dave loudly proclaimed as “Home Sweet Brome,” with Cadence in your arms, sandwiched between Dave fishing a set of keys out of nowhere and Karkat holding the remnants of your life in his large grey hands. It isn’t quite what you’d expected given the media's portrayal of the standard family unit. It’s one house of many, for one. Not quite the quirky individualized eclectic nature of troll architecture, or the giant soaring spires of your dreams. It’s a skinny, narrow thing hanging on the end of a row of identical, attached houses, with a tiny yard you can see from the street and neighbors sharing one wall. 

Not a proper house at all. But not an apartment either. 

Definitely not something you’ve ever imagined yourself living in, even in your dreams where the ghosts of hundreds lived below you. The Home you came from put this meager offering to shame when it comes to sheer volume, even with what is clearly “three floors, honest.”

Then again, the Home was meant to house dozens. This tiny end-slice of the bread would be more than enough to support three.

You and your…

Parents.

One of whom jiggles a silver key in the top lock, flips it upside down in the second, and twists. Ready to open the portal to your new life.

And then proceeds to turn around and stuff key and hands into the pockets of his suit, and get off on yet another bright red ramble. Colors so saturated you can see them even if you blink.

“I--just so you know--we had a bit of construction recently--redid the whole upstairs, god the condo association was a pain in the-- about it--so don’t mind the dust. I swear I tried to clean it up but I’m terrible at that sh--at it. All you have to do is ask Kanaya, she’d tell you. I swear I love my sister and her lovely troll wife to bits but god is it anxiety inducing to have them drop by--”

“I can feel myself broiling with each word that spews out of your mouth-hole. Move. ” The Grey words bubble up from behind you, scrawling themselves across your mental screen as you sidestep to remove yourself from the crossfire as the grouchy troll behind you moves, shoving past the shorter human and finishing the job. 

Karkat has a head and a half on Dave and yet Dave doesn’t so much as sway under the assault. It’is clearly for show, a part of this strange constant song and dance the two are constantly engaged in, the human rolling with the motion and pivoting on one heel and letting the troll barrel through and into the shelter of the inner hallway. Karkat continues his tirade without pausing, “You can tell Dirk about your constant war on the infuriating hive alliance council once we’re no longer in danger of melting. This sun might not be strong enough to roast me, but that doesn’t mean I _like_ getting fried by interstellar radiation. Just because your squishy carapace refuses to burn doesn’t mean the rest of us mere mortals are immune.”

The human half of this bizarre pairing just adjusts his shades with a shrug. “I saw you making popcorn last time when I was on the phone with them. Don’t you deny the entertainment you derive from my struggles! It’s called schadenfreude, you sadist!” 

If Karkat responds, he’s too deep into the house for you to hear it, but you suddenly _feel_ the weight of a shadowed gaze flick to you. “I promise we’re not always like--nah, nevermind, that’s a lie. We _are_ always like this. Sorry if it comes as a shock.”

You weren’t frozen. Not at all. Your legs _don’t_ feel like lead, welded to the front step by the heat of the sun melting the worn rubber soles of your shoes. 

“I had already come to the conclusion from our very first meeting, believe me,” You declare loudly, Cadence’s soft pink body squishing against the force of the squeeze, “No shock here. The lightning rod of my own correct deductions snapped any and all that shock up. You’ll have to try better than that.”

“We’ll see how well it holds up against the storm rollin’ in.” Red drips like blood on the screen while Dave just cracks a smile and takes a step back into the dimly lit hallway, hand sweeping in a flourish indicating for you to head on in through the opening Karkat...negotiated for you. 

“C’mon, I can show you to your room if you want, lil’buddy. It’s pretty dope if I do say so myself. It used to be an office, but it’s got this sweet view of the neighborhood duckpond--”

Karkat left your bag in the hallway and Dave snags them up as you unstick your legs from their unwanted position on the front stoop. Three floors, they said. The hallways are narrow and the stairs run up and around and the third floor unfolds around you as you follow Dave and your worn orange duffle up to the highest floor of the house, “Now, I don’t know how big your digs were at the old place, but I bet you you didn’t have a giant wall full of bookshelves to display all your sh--well, anything you want to really. I left a few books up there I thought you might like, and we moved KK’s old desk to the corner to get you a place to draw if you want it. We’ll look into letting you pick out your own furniture once you get settled in some, okay? We’ll even drag Karkat’s cave-troll shaped a--behind out with us, although I think he’ll kick up a fuss about it. We’re already over quota when it comes to him leaving the house but I think I can guilt him into it. He gets really into interior decorating, it must be a troll thing--”

Your things get dropped on the inside of the doorframe like a sack of potatoes. It doesn’t even make a thud, that’s how inconsequential the material sum of your life is. If you’d ever been allowed out to the market you would’ve walked right past the poor display. Your potatoes are unripe runts plucked out of the ground before they could do more than grow a tiny blob of potato flesh with some rooty sprouted eyes. 

In the weeks after Mx. Thalia brought in a farmer for Earth Day, they gave you all your own dirt covered spuds, already sprouting white extraterrestrial eyestalks. A lesson in life or some shit. You actually liked the hands-on stuff, it was pretty cool, and you kinda liked seeing those weird ugly roots grow longer and longer and more like some alien squid monster was gonna burst out of the spud-shaped egg.

You drew that once. No one liked to see that one. You don’t know why. It’s not like it was tearing someone apart or something. Just snoozing and blowing bubbles, as giant space squids do.

That potato was long gone. Planted in the Garden with the others. 

You suddenly realize you won’t see it harvested.

Could you ask Ferahn to send it to you?

You can’t talk to Ferahn anymore either.

You could ask your new Parents to ask her. Maybe.

But then you’d have to admit you want something.

You don’t much like doing that either.

Especially over something as inane as a _potato._

You don’t even know if you _like_ potato. 

Eyes on the road Dirk. Don’t get lost in your own head. For someone so chatty you say very few words aloud.

Maybe it’s because Dave’s still talking. 

You’re starting to realize Dave is _always_ talking.

“--honestly, we waited on you before doin’ much more than pulling out a lot of Karkat’s old things and relegating them to storage in the basement--did I mention we have a basement? The ol’ townhouse looks small from the outside but it’s much bigger on the inside. A virtual tardis. Sometimes I wonder if Jade snuck in here when I wasn’t looking and worked her magic--”

It’s a nice room, you suppose, as you creep out from behind Dave, only listening with half an ear as you survey this space they supposedly set aside just for you. It’s a little small, but it’s up in the roof of the house so it’s got _plenty_ of ceiling so it doesn’t feel so cramped. Dave wasn’t kidding about the wall full of _literal_ bookshelves built into them, either. Or the desk placed in a nook somewhat shaded from the light coming in the decorative windows on the outer wall of the house.

There’s some sort of cushioned seating device in front of it, built into the frame. Trees sway in a wind you can’t feel, beyond the glass barrier. You find yourself drawn to the windows even as you grumble inside about the light. About how much it makes your eyes strain. But you’ve spent enough time in the garden at Home to recognize indirect vs direct sun, and besides, there’s curtains hanging on either side, ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice. They’re Red and _heavy_ , an unexpected, stiff weight as they slide between your questing thumb and fingertips.

“Blackout curtains.” Dave supplies when you pull them along their rod with a rhythmic clatter, “We make sure to get the migrain grade sh--kind. Between a sun-antagonistic troll and my albino ass we made sure they’re on all the windows in the house. We can swap out the color later if you want. Wasn’t even sure if you wanted windows, but I dunno, you seem to like drawing water and I’m sorry I can’t pick up the house and plop you down in front of the actual ocean--though maybe one day we could move out there, I hear Jade’s set up down on the coast, we’ll see--”

“It’s fine.” You offer, breaking that particular tangent as you calculate that it’s gone off the rails quite far enough. You have to mentally rewind in order to figure out where he was even going with it in the first place. You have no idea what he means by albino, and then ignore the implication that he’d be willing to move just to get you near the coast, a branching path that you don’t really want to touch because it makes some long buried dread in your stomach wriggle like a live eel. 

It’s not like it would happen anyway--because really, he’d have to convince Karkat, and you have already observed them enough to conclude that it was Karkat’s job to grab him by the ear and squeeze when he goes off and promises something that’s unrealistic to realize--focus. Water. Dave mentioned a view. Of Water. You can see the trees, and a path, a path that curves around a small lake, afternoon sunlight glinting along the water. Distant birds bob along the water. Gulls, your brain fills in, but you know they aren’t really gulls. All birds are gulls to you, even if these ones aren’t big and white but small and brown, some with bright green heads. 

Even so, as you shrug your backpack off and let it slide to the floor, as you climb into the cushioned window seat, as you pull Cadence between your chest and your knees, as you look out in the soft sunlight, you wonder if you can feed them. If you could leave the windows open would they wander inside? Would you wake up to find a faceless bird preening your hair? Leaving off-white feathers everywhere?

But no, that only happens in dreams. In dreams where no one has faces or they all have your own face because there’s so many of you.

The wind should smell and taste like salt.

“See, I told KK you’d like the duck pond.”

Dave breaking a silence you hadn’t realized had fallen snaps you out of the hypnotism of the sun on the rippling water. You look up and over. He’s still standing near the door. You wonder why he won’t come in. You want to ask if you could go down there, but you don’t. It’s beyond the walls. All you can do is watch. 

“You know--” For someone who’s been talking almost this whole time he’s suddenly struck speechless, jaw working as he looks at you, small and spindly tucked into the window. You pull your hat down lower as a shield against the weight of his covered eyes, hunching your shoulders, “I’ll scoot on downstairs and bother Karkat into making an unscheduled grocery run for dinner since I’m not allowed to drive his car. Did you want anything? Snacks? Drinks? Dinner requests? I can make a mean mac n cheese, but between the two of us we don’t cook much except when company is over but hey, you’re permanent company. I know the home offered home cooked meals so we gotta at _least_ attempt to match that standard sometimes.”

You consider it. You’ve never really had a choice before. 

“Fish. And beans.” You decide at last, thinking of the one meal a month when fish would be offered. Rare, because apparently most kids didn’t like fish-sticks, much less a slab of the stuff. The one meal you missed because you were obsessively drawing. The one meal that led to Ferahn tracking you down and telling you the weird man who asked about Cadence wanted to see you again.

Your fingers itch. Your sketchpads are in your bag. 

You dig the traitorous limbs into Cadence’s plush flesh.

“Oh yeah, don’t worry buddy, already on the list. Ferahn gave me the downlow on that. Salmon preferably right? The really bright orangey pink sh--kind?”

You nod.

With a flourish he produces a device--a phone?--and types up some notes in it, “Anything else?”

You shrug. 

“Orange juice.”

For some reason that elicits a snort. You could swear you heard a muffled “Of course.” as the furious typing continues. Dave waits for a moment, as if expecting more, and you uncomfortably turn your eyes out toward the window again, thinking enviously of his shades and about how you wish you had something more substantial than your cap to hide behind.

“Nothing else?”

You shrug again. 

“It’s not like I’d know what to ask for anyway.”

“Touche.” The phone? vanishes back into pocket space. Maybe it’s one of those sylladexes the elder Siblings had. “Maybe once you get settled in a bit more we’ll go on a hella exciting field trip to the local grocery store and I’ll plop you down in the snack aisle and tell you to choose. That was always a highlight of my life growing up. Junk food and tooth-rottingly sweet colored things for _days--_ ” 

You don’t say anything more until he’s gone, taking his stolen Red with him. Leaving you with an empty screen and room to breathe. 

You drag out your sketchpad and pencils and sit with it on your knees, looking out over the pond with it’s gull--ducks and it’s people who walk leisurely around it as the afternoon shades towards evening. Your pencils should be scratching against the page, but you can’t. You’ve been holding your breath for so long, when you exhale it’s in black and blue.

You don’t like drawing when you’re black and blue.

It hurts.

Rows and rows of choices. 

A child unable to choose, so you chose for him.

The image is so clear in your mind. So full it feels like you’re bursting. 

You try to put the image to the page and it comes out bloody and harsh.

You draw birds instead. 

Not the Gulls.

The black ones, high up in the tower who never approached you. The ones that watched you. Mocked you.

Judged you.

You deserved it.

You tear the page free and crumble it up and _squeeze_ , the sharp edges digging into your flesh.

And, the bruise fades, and drains of color, and you’re left empty. 

Exhausted.

You wake to find the sun gone, the moon creeping higher in the sky, and a bag of extra cheesy doritos sitting near your elbow. A sticky note written in red ink on yellow paper stuck to it. And then a second note attached to that. And another. And another. You can count the number of times he came up to check on you from the number of notes, apparently.

You can’t read any of it under the dim light from the window, and the distant hall light doesn’t reach. You don’t try. You just hug Cadence and watch the small white reflection of the moon rippling on the water.

There’s a pit in your stomach, but you already know it’s not hunger.

Footsteps on the stairs. You’re grateful for the sound. It lets you close your eyes and pretend to be asleep when someone checks on you.

Whoever it is sighs and grumbles and the carpeted floor creaks as it redistributes the added weight. It’s all you can do not to tense when big strong arms slide under your legs and back. And lifts you up. And over. And down again. Into a proper bed with a proper pillow as the mattress creaks beneath you and fabric shifts. He doesn’t try to take Cadance from you but you tighten your grip anyway.

“You’ll ruin your neck, sleeping like that. Idiot.” Karkat grumbles, quietly, to himself. “You’re already fitting right in.”

Claws skim your forehead, brushing against your bangs, removing the cap gently from your head and smoothing out your hair. Carefully filed, but unmistakably troll claws. Ferahn’s claws. Only Ferahn’s not here anymore. If you open your eyes the eyes glowing faintly in the dark wouldn’t be kind, and green, would they? The words are Grey. Not lime.

You hadn’t realized when Karkat stole a color. You suppose it was just a matter of time. Your crayon box is being plundered, and it’s beyond time you let them go.

If Karkat says any more, you don’t recognize it as words. Just colors. And it’s so easy for grey to bleed into the shifting landscape behind your eyelids. Pretending becomes reality as you distantly hear the curtains being pulled shut. 

Home sweet home.

**Author's Note:**

> ...I really should have just made this one big story, shouldn't I... These might as well be chapters.
> 
> Oh well. 
> 
> I think the next one is probably back to Dave's POV.


End file.
